Silicon Beach Tour
Venice Beach has become famous as a home of startup companies.
On August 23, 2019, New York Times journalist Daniel Hernandez interviewed Venice Beach Walking Tours Co-Founder Fran Solomon for a New York Times article on the future of Venice Beach. Check it out here: Snapchats Disappearing Act Leaves Venice Beach Searching for Its Future
The punchline on the rise of Silicon Beach: On March 2, 2017, the first startup company headquartered in Venice Beach went public on the New York Stock Exchange: Snap Inc. The millionaires minted by the Snap IPO changed Venice and the Westside of Los Angeles forever because they attracted many more like minded and deep pocketed friends and like minded people to Venice. The suits, NY and SF bay area tranplants, especially the "tech" industry workers changed Venice forever.
According to a 2018 study by marketing agency Mediakix, which analyzed 177 companies headquartered in Los Angeles County, the areas tech industry is estimated to be worth more than $155 billion. several Southern California startups such as Snapchat, the Honest Co., and Dollar Shave Club have received billion-dollar valuations.
Venice Beach is next door to Westwood, where in 1969 the first message on the ARPANET (the network that evolved into the Internet), was sent from UCLA to Palo Alto's Stanford Research Institute.
Venice Beach has been or is the headquarters for hundreds of startups. How many of these Represent.LA startups have you heard of?
- Parachute
parachutehome.com
We design high-end bedding in LA, manufacturing in Italy and sell direct to consumer.
- AirportChatter
airportchatter.com
AirportChatter is a free mobile app that provides you with the information, tools and interactions to make air-travel a better experience.
- Dollar Shave Club
dollarshaveclub.comHigher quality razors at low prices.
- Grubwithus
grubwithus.com
Social Dining.
- Gem
gem.co
Bitcoin and cryptocurrency security platform for developers.
- SmartRules
smartrules.com
Navigation System for litigators.
- Primary Ocean
primaryocean.com
Vertically intergrated seaweed biotechnology company.
- Paragon
useparagon.com
Low code platform for developers.
You can hear more about the future of Venice and the startup community when you take a Venice Beach Walking Tour.